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For Kelly Thomas

By Adrienne, on January 14th, 2014

I’m compelled to put some words here in honor of Kelly Thomas, some kind of expression of solidarity with his family. I want to express my outrage at yesterday’s acquittal of the men who murdered him, but my feelings are big and language seems too small. I went to sleep last night thinking of the Thomas family, woke up this morning thinking of him and praying a prayer about the men who killed Kelly that I’m pretty sure God doesn’t honor.

So I will tell you this small sliver, this little piece, and it is this: Kelly Thomas is Kelly Thomas. He is described in the news as a homeless man or a mentally ill man or a man with schizophrenia. Those things, those descriptors, are all true, but Kelly Thomas was Kelly Thomas and he was a person and he was beloved of his family and those things are also true.

The surveillance video shows that Kelly Thomas was beat and beat and beat by Fullerton police officers on July 5, 2011 and while the cops beat him he cried for his dad and God and his mom and they beat him some more until he stopped moving. When Kelly was finally unconscious, lying on the hot pavement, handcuffed, his blood pooling around him, the police officers began the anxious process of creating a suitable narrative. “He was really fighting,” one says. “He was definitely on something,” says another. Yes, yes, true. A person in the process of being beaten to death will fight. Terror is a powerful drug.

And they—those police officers, all six of them who got on top of, beat, pistol whipped, tased, and ultimately murdered a terrified, unarmed man—slept in their beds last night. They kissed their children goodnight.

The last time Ron and Cathy Thomas kissed their son goodnight was July 10, 2011, when they removed him from life support.

Think about that, because I can’t stop thinking about it: their babylove, the child for whom Cathy and Ron Thomas stayed up too late on Christmas Eve wrapping presents, and who they taught to ride a bike, who they took to the doctor when he had an earache and later, when he had other, more mysterious symptoms, and they fought and struggled and loved and tried to rescue him when schizophrenia grabbed him and wrestled him away from them and it was they who had to make the choice. It was they who signed the papers that authorized the hospital to turn off the machines. Mom and Dad, who couldn’t protect their son, who will live with the image of his devastated and dying body forever. They, who sat in the courtroom every day, listened to the audio of their son crying out for them, and finally listened to the acquittal of the men who hurt him unto death.

I kissed my own son goodnight, too. My little boy, who is terrified of anyone he doesn’t know touching him, who sometimes acts in inexplicable and frightening ways, who often doesn’t understand what is happening around him. My boy, whose illness sometimes makes him seem weird and unlikeable…how, how, how to make the world understand that he is my beloved son? That we, the parents, siblings, spouses, children, and friends of people with mental illness know them to be people? They are not the monsters in the movies or the villains in TV shows or amusing pop-culture characters but people.

Kelly Thomas was not disposable. He deserved so much better. His family deserved better, and all of us who live with or love someone with severe mental illness deserve better.

There are no disposable people, but we sure as hell act as if there are.

We have got it so wrong, we have to work this out and support each other and help the weak, the sick, the disturbed. We must do better. That those officers got away with it is despicable. I’m so sorry for the family who have to live without their loved one.Molley@A Mother Life recently posted..Teaching Boys to Respect Women Despite our Current Culture

I loved this article however, the photo released by Fullerton PD was not of Kelly Thomas. Family and many supporters have grown an outright resentment toward this photo as it was “more scary” than actual photos of Kelly. If you email, I can provide an actual photo of Kelly or one may be obtained from The Kelly Thomas Murder Trial page on Facebook. The Thomas family may be reached through the Kelly Thomas Memorial Fund site at ktmf.org
Thank you for your time.